Preview: The Little Known by Janice Daugharty

When twelve-year-old Knot Crews, an African American boy growing up in the segregated south Georgia town of Statenville, discovers a bag of bank-robbed cash in an alley, he is nearly overcome with happiness and terror. All that money—a hundred thousand dollars—could be the ticket to everything he’s ever wanted, but he knows he can’t spend it, not only because his conscience won’t let him, but for fear of being caught.

He decides to do what he can for his needy neighbors, both black and white, and begins mailing them hundred dollar bills anonymously, but it irks Knot daily to discover that most of them squander it and don’t use the money as he had intended, and that the money doesn’t change their lives for the better. It turns out that the weight of Knot’s world can’t be lifted by cold hard cash alone.

Set during the turbulent 1960’s,The Little Known is a coming-of-age story full of hope and forgiveness.